Awake
by chloereidishere
Summary: Rick wakes up from a coma. AU in which Kate is an attending and Rick is/was a patient of hers. ABANDONED, YOU CAN STEAL THIS AND CARRY ON IF YOU REALLY WANT TO
1. Chapter 1

Like lifting a dead weight, I struggle to open my eyes. My vision fills with surroundings surreal to me.

_Where am I?_

The blinding light of the source overhead burns my retinas as I open my eyes fully, although they are soon shut again. Blinking once, twice, three times before I actually take notice of where I am.

_A hospital._

The beeping and whirring of machines. The buzz of people - doctors, nurses, friends, family – in the corridors. The sharp smell of disinfectant that stings my nostrils as I take in a breath for the first time in what seems like a millennium. The air, tinged with the stench, feels good. Filling my lungs, watching my own chest rise as I breathe. It feels… new.

_But, wait._

_Why am I here?_

_Why is Richard Castle - best-selling author, son of a spy and part-time detective - in hospital?_

I lean forward only to be greeted by the screams of the machines I'm hooked up to. A web of wires and tubes keep me down.

_What was going on? What happened?_

_The last thing I remember was embracing the beautiful Katherine Beckett as my daughter and I were reunited with her and my mother._

_And now I'm here. This can't be right._

The door swung open a young woman in dark blue scrubs and a white coat rushes in. Stethoscope in one hand and the other beckoning nurses into the room. My chest felt tight. It hurt, a lot. My vision started to move in and out of focus.

"Mr Rogers? Mr Rogers, I'm Dr. Beckett. You're gonna be alright. Just stay with us, okay?"

_That voice. Beckett? Doctor? What…_

I force my eyes open. Her face. Her eyes.

_It's her. Its Kate._

"K-Kate…"

I'm breathless, light-headed, with a burning sensation in my chest.

"What?"

_She sounds so confused. Why?_

"Charge to 300."

"I…"

"Clear."

A shock travels through my body. Everything is intensified. It hurts more now. It hurts so much.

"I… love…"

"Clear."

Again. My heart has stopped. I can barely keep my eyes open.

_But I have to fight. I have to say it. I have to tell her._

"I love you."

_I can't keep going. At least she knows now._

"Dr Beckett, you have to call it."

"Time of death: 4:24pm."

Kate put back the paddles and sighed. First day as an attending and she's lost one. She sits down outside of Mr Rogers' room and holds her head in her hands. She doesn't usually cry.

"Did you know him?" asks a nurse that was in the room with her.

"No, I didn't."

"He said he loves you. He knew your name."

"Maybe someone should check his psych records. I didn't know him."

Kate got up, wiping her tears away as she stalked off down the hall.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO UPDATE. I'm not very good at updating stuff. Seriously, I am the worst at this. But, stick around for my chapters I suppose. Also, apologies for anyone being OOC but this is an AU fic so...**

"I don't know, Lanie. It was pretty strange. Its like he'd known me all his life."

"He coded. No point worrying about it now." said Lanie, not sounding anywhere near as concerned as she should have.

Kate yawned, stretching her limbs out like a cat. It had been a long day. She had been an attending for a whole 24 hours and now she was beat, ready to go home and sleep away the fear and fatigue that the day had brought her. If she could sleep that is.

Rick Rogers had been on her mind all day. She didn't know who he was, really. She looked over his charts. A regular guy, in his 20s. Had been in a coma for 2 weeks after a tragic car accident, killing his daughter as they were on the way to the airport. She was only small. Thrown through the wind shield as a speeding Chevy that didn't brake soon enough, rammed into the back of their car. Okay, so maybe she'd looked a little further past his charts. Kate had spent her lunch break in the on-call room, on her laptop, trying to figure this guy out. What connected them? How did he know her? Nothing, apparently.

Kate rose from the couch she had sprawled herself upon and grabbed her bag, ready to leave.

"I guess I'm off then. Let me know when his family come in. I couldn't get a hold of his mom earlier." she called as she bumped the door open with her hip, picking up some papers from the desk as she did so.

"I said forget about it, K-Bex!" laughed Lanie. She always called her 'K-Bex' when she was worried about her.

Kate shoved the papers into her bag and pulled out her cellphone, looking through articles on Rick's accident. Articles she had read through four times over already.

"Who _are _you?" she mumbled to herself as walked the hospital halls towards the exit.

"Who's who?" rumbled a deep voice, startling her.

A young, clean shaven man sidled up next her, looking over her shoulder at the now locked cellphone screen.

"Shit, Kev. You scared me." she said, sounding rather flustered.

"You? Scared? I don't think so, Kate." chirped Kevin Ryan, another new attending surgeon.

"Beckett? Scared? Ha! Yeah right! She's tough as nails." boomed another voice from the other side of Kate.

"Shit! Damn it, Espo." laughed Kate, startled again.

"Where you rushing off to anyway? Hot date?" laughed Kevin, flashing a knowing smile at Esposito.

Kate sighed. Hot date? Yeah right. She hadn't dated anyone in months.

"You guys are _so _hilarious.," said Kate, her voice thick with sarcasm, "I'm just heading home. I need some sleep."

"That's not all she needs." giggled Espo, nudging Kate, winking as he did so.

Kate rolled her eyes and called goodbye to the boys as she left the hospital. She pulled her keys from her pockets and unlocked her car. She looked back at the hospital, her hand hovering over the car door handle. Sighing, she opened to car door and threw her jacket and bag inside. She shut the door, locked the car and turned around.

_Just one last look at him, just to clear things up. He's dead. I don't know him. _

The morgue was at the back of the hospital so Kate didn't go back in the way she came out. She walked swiftly round to the back of hospital, trying to avoid seeing any of her fellow surgeons. The air turned cold, chilling her bones, eerily creeping up her back and over her body as she neared the morgue. She wrapped her arms around her torso and bumped the door open with her hip. The smell of embalming fluid and disinfectant hit her.

_At least it doesn't smell like dead people._

She looked around, surrounded by empty metal slabs and and stainless steel cabinets that held those that no longer lived. There was one black body bag lying on a slab near the front of the morgue.

_That must be him._

As she got closer, creeping towards she could hear a rustling as if someone was alive in the bag. It got louder, sounding more like a voice. She reached out slowing, cautiously, her hands trembling ever so slightly as she did. Was that because it was cold or because she was afraid of what she would find? She unzipped the bag, revealing a very alive body inside of it. Kate jumped back, falling onto a trolley of, thankfully, empty tool trays.

"Kate?"

"Mr Rogers?"


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Surprisingly, I updated pretty soon. Don't get your hopes up though.**

"Mr Rogers? I haven't used that name in years, Kate." laughed Rick.

"M-Mr Rogers? Holy shit."

Kate didn't believe in zombies or the undead and had never really considered the possibility. Being a doctor and all. It just wasn't possible. Yet... here he was. Alive. Breathing. Talking. Laughing. This guy was full of surprises. Surprises that Kate had had enough of.

"Nothing holy about this shit. Honestly, is this how they treat the patients here? You chuck them in body bags? Help me out will you, Kate?"

"No... n-no. No, no, no. No!" Kate was exasperated, confused.

"I take it that's a no then..." mumbled Castle, unzipping the bag fully only to notice that he was naked. He started to laugh, quietly at first and then louder and more hysterical.

"What are you laughing at?" Kate was annoyed. Her brow furrowed, creasing her forehead.

"I'm naked," he giggled, "Look!"

"I'd rather not, considering you're meant to be dead and all."

Kate opened up one of the many cupboards in the morgue and pulled out a pair of scrubs for Rick. She tossed them at him and turned around, covering her eyes. She sighed internally. _Could this day get any stranger?_ she thought. And then, almost as if he could read her mind, Rick spoke.

"This is rather strange, isn't it?"

Kate turned around to answer him with the most sarcastic "no" she could manage when she realised she hadn't judged his distance very accurately. She was now face-to-face with him. The warmth radiating from him was immense, almost burning her cold hands that were now placed on his chest ready to push him away.

_Who does this guy think he is?_

Rick cupped Kate's face, an electricity passing between them as he pulled her closer and their lips touched ever so slightly. It stung but it was sensational. Their lips interlocked and Kate got caught up in the moment. Her hands moved up to his face now, their arms intertwined, her thumb stroking his jawline when she froze. She had forgotten herself for a brief moment. She pulled away.

"Kate." he groaned, grabbing her forearm.

"Let go, please." she mumbled half-heartedly.

Kate had lost herself in that brief moment of intensity. The kiss felt so familiar, like it was meant to be but foreign at the same time. She hadn't felt the rough of a man's stubble in what seemed like forever. The shadow of his chapped lips still lingered on her own, clouding her thoughts. She looked into his deep blue eyes. They were bluer than the glow of a sapphire but as deep as the depths of the ocean. How could he be doing this to her? She didn't even like _guys_. But still... his tousled brown hair and the smug grin he was wearing. It was irresistible.

"What's going on, Kate?"

Rick may have looked confident but on the inside he was afraid. He remembers dreaming. He was lying in a hospital bed, with wires and tubes connecting him to an endless sea of machines, whirring and beeping and screeching in a foreign robotic language. And then there was a lot of noise and fuss and then... and then there was Kate. She was a doctor. She called him Mr Rogers and now... He was here. In a morgue, in scrubs, fresh out of a body bag. What was going on?

"I was hoping you could tell me, Mr Rogers." said Kate, sounding exasperated.

"You know my name is Rick... or you can call me Castle. Like you always do..." He paused, taking a deep breath and pinching himself.

_This must be dream_, he thought. _Kate isn't really a doctor, she isn't really calling me "Mr Rogers". This is just a dream._

"What are you doing? And why the hell would I call you Castle?" She sounded genuinely surprised by the name "Castle". The name she had been calling him for the past 4 and a half years. The name she had always called him.

"N-nevermind. Could you just give me a clue as to why I was in a body bag?"

The fear in Rick's voice was heart-breaking. He sounded like a little boy, lost. His voice shook and broke in places you wouldn't expect from a grown man.

* * *

Kate explained to him what had happened. From the car crash to him time of death. Kate looked at her watch: it was 11:30pm. Her next shift was 5am. She couldn't leave "Castle" here in the morgue or the hospital but he didn't have anywhere else to go. Unless she took him back to her place.

_That isn't a good idea._

Kate sighed, looking at her watch again as Castle digested and absorbed the information. It was a lot to take on, especially as he thought he was someone else, living a completely different life. He ran a hand through his hair as the other rested on his brow which was furrowed. He had a serious look on his face. There was silence, unbroken except for a sharp intake of breath. With a look of nothing but despair and disappointment, he simply said:

"So, I really didn't write any of those books I thought I did?"


	4. Chapter 4

"No you didn't. We're all dead and this is purgatory! Welcome! Sit down, have a drink and get ready for your next life."

**THIS FIC IS OFFICIALLY ABANDONED **

**okay thanks xoxoxo**


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